


For Gold and Glory

by guineapiggie



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bitterness, Character Study, Everyone needs a hug and a good night's sleep really, F/M, Gen, Injury Recovery, in which I get over my beef with Davits Draven who like everyone else is just trying to do his job, not too depressing be proud of me, who to give a medal when nobody wants it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9452720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: Be it known that Cassian's day wasn’t amounting to much even before Draven informs him he is to be awarded a medal of honour along with Skywalker and Solo in the name ofRogue One,and he drops his spoon into his bowl.Draven doesn’t miss a beat, and keeps talking like rationed food hasn’t just been spilled across the table for no reason at all.“This is a much demanded addition to the memorial service we were planning to hold. Don’t look at me like that, Andor, I’m not wild about giving you a medal for disobedience, either."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my wish to give Bodhi some overdue credit and, (embarassingly) this line from "Walking In Memphis", because I've been listening to old songs again. Somebody stop me.
> 
>  
> 
> _She said “tell me, are you a Christian, child?” and I said “ma’am, I am tonight”_

Be it known that Cassian was having a bad day _before_ his superior officer and Princess Leia Organa, de-facto leader of the Rebel Alliance, formerly of Alderaan, sat down at his comfortably deserted table at the mess hall.

He has been _left behind._ To “recover”, as Draven put it, which only makes him angrier, because it means pretending there is some superior state of being that he’ll be able to get to if he just rests enough, which is a load of Bantha shit. His back _hurts,_ and his knees start shaking after two-hundred and thirty-eight steps, threatening to give out underneath him, and on occasion, his legs refuse to do his bidding altogether.

(But it’s not like waiting will magically heal the nerve damage, so that means he’s about as good as he’ll ever get, and still he’s left behind to _recover._ )

They called it a routine mission, but Cassian has been in this far too long to take any comfort from that. “Routine” is a word thrown at people who look worried, supposed to imply that it’s been done a thousand times over, that the chances of something going wrong are astronomical, but this is war. The thousand and first time is as good as any other.

He’s their captain, damn it. If they die without him –

So in summary, his day wasn’t amounting to much even before Draven informs him he is to be awarded a medal of honour along with Skywalker and Solo in the name of _Rogue One,_ and he drops his spoon into his bowl.

Draven doesn’t miss a beat, and keeps talking like rationed food hadn’t just been spilled across the table for no reason at all.

“This is a much demanded addition to the memorial service we were planning to hold. Don’t look at me like that, Andor, I’m not wild about giving you a medal for disobedience, either.”

“I work in _intelligence,_ sir. All this public attention is completely –“

“Believe me, I’m aware. But out of the survivors, you’re the only actual _member_ of the Alliance, captain. And besides that, you’re the only one present,” his General says matter-of-factly, and Cassian grips his glass tighter.

“I’m not accepting. Give it to Rook.”

Draven frowns, but something like amusement flickers over the princess’s face.

“Be sensible, Andor,” Draven says, but Cassian shakes his head.

“With respect, you pin a medal on anyone other than Bodhi Rook, I might have to openly defy you in front of half the Alliance. I imagine that wouldn’t be helping,” he says quietly, and the princess sighs.

“I have a feeling conversation with you isn’t advisable before you have your people back.”

She’s not half wrong, but Cassian choses to ignore both that fact and her quip, and instead says: “Your highness, I’m not joking, I will drop it then and there.”

“Can you compare what you have done for the Alliance to Rook, captain?” asks Draven, and Cassian raises a brow. Wrong answer. _Wrong_ answer.

“He did all he could. As did everyone else,” he hisses, vaguely aware of the fact he ought not to speak to Draven like this – oh, he needs pain meds.

Still, Organa smiles a little. “I understand, captain, I really do, but we have no guarantee that he will be back in time. You have done us long and exceptional service and the Alliance means to give back to you.”

 _How do you say these words, princess?_ Cassian thinks, and throws her a dark look. _This cause doesn’t_ give _to anyone, it just takes, and you and I know that all too well_.

“We sacrifice our present for a better future, your highness, not for gold and glory,” he says with a shrug. “I _defied_ orders, and I will not be commended for that.”

Again, she sighs. “Don’t you see what you’ve done for the Alliance, captain? How much hope you’ve given everyone here?”

“That’s not the _point_. The point is, I’m a spy, you don’t pin medals on a spy.”

“But on an enemy defector?” asks Draven quietly and Cassian puts the glass down too firmly, but the princess throws him another of her mild smiles set with steel and adds:

“We _know,_ captain. But this is about politics, not sympathy.”

Cassian opts for stoic silence, hoping it might serve him better than arguing, and sits up in his chair despite the pain, staring into Draven’s worn face.

After a while, the general casts his eyes down and lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Erso, then.”

“ _No,_ ” Cassian says in a sharp, quiet voice, and they both frown at him.

“Captain-“

“No. Not Jyn, and not me.”

They’re both silent, and Cassian goes for drastic measures.

“Bodhi is from Jedha City, did you know?” he says, very softly. It’s a calculated statement, cruel almost. It means nothing to Draven, and too much to the princess.

Something flashes across her face for just a second, a splinter of raw grief, and Cassian nearly regrets saying anything, but he can’t take it back, and he wouldn’t if he could.

“Either you give it to him or you don’t give it to any of us.”

She seems to have composed herself - on the surface, anyway. “Leave the survivors of Scarif out of the ceremony? I’d be off to a wonderful start.”

“I won’t accept a medal,” Cassian repeats stubbornly.

“We have to reward _someone_ , Andor,” she says, no less wilful. “Neither of them are here, and we don’t know when they’ll be back.”

The correct phrasing would be _we don’t know_ if _they’ll be back,_ but she doesn’t say that, and she doesn’t have to.

Cassian holds her gaze for a while, but her brown eyes are so full of pain and she’s at least six years younger than him but it’s like staring into a mirror, and suddenly he can hardly take that, and so he casts his eyes down and inspects the dried splashes of stew on the table.

“You three have restored the rebels’ faith. In the Rebellion, in miracles. Does that mean nothing to you?”

Cassian has no answer for that. He has learned to work towards a result, and not to care about people’s state of being other than _alive_ and _dead,_ and this is a question he can’t let himself think about. He keeps his eyes trained on the brownish stains, and remains silent.

“Are you religious, captain?”

He looks up in surprise – mostly that she even needs to ask – and Draven looks mildly bewildered.

“Ma’am, with respect, that is not relevant to-“

Cassian is surprised (and a little touched, admittedly) to hear his general jump to his defence, but cuts him off without meaning to when he spots someone at the entrance of the hall and a small disbelieving laugh escapes his lips.

“I think right now I might be,” he hears himself mutter. He is on his feet before he can force himself to add an “excuse me”, and cuts through the crowd more swiftly than he thought his weak legs were able to go.

 

* * *

 

 

Leia turns her head to look after the captain – his steps look surer than they are, she has seen the reports; it’s all the more testament to his invaluable abilities for espionage, and goes to show he can be just as cruel to himself as to others, and probably feels a lot less guilty about that.

A small group of rebels has entered the mess hall, two of them loitering behind, hesitant to walk into the crowded room. Leia sympathises.

There’s Rook, all long restless limbs and eyes like ink that always look like he’s seen a ghost, even at this distance. He smiles at Andor and grips his captain at the arm to stabilise him. Andor swats the hand away with an impatient flicker of the wrist, but there is a rare thing pulling at his lips that might almost be called a smile.

There’s Erso, smaller than her crewmates by a foot or so, but crackling with energy even when dusty and tired. There is a fire in that woman’s eyes, Leia thinks, not for the first time, and smiles. Those eyes have rekindled the Rebellion's dying embers - and the poor captain has been burnt by them more than anybody else. (Her fire is a beautiful, dangerous thing, and brings as much pain as warmth. It looks like Andor gets his fair share of both.)

There’s a glance passing between the worn spy and Jyn Erso, holding more conflicting emotions than Leia thought were possible to convey at the same time. Their eyes only meet for a heartbeat, but she hovers at his elbow as they leave, like she’s waiting to catch him, and he’s leaning towards her ever so slightly, probably has no idea he’s doing it.

Leia doesn’t know whether to envy or pity the pair of them.

A hush goes through the hall at the sight of them, always, and while she knows first-hand how horrible it feels, she understands. There are no words for these people’s bravery, and none for their sacrifices – which make them just like most people eating at these tables, and yet –

_Heroes._

(By the looks of it, Andor would have a word or two to say about that term, though.)

“Rook, then,” she says to Draven, who looks after his subordinate with a glint of vague regret in his eyes. When he turns back to her, he just looks tired, and after a moment, he sighs and answers with a shrug:

“Just bear in mind it was not my idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You should have medals,” Bodhi immediately says, “not me, I-“

He falls silent at the withering glare that meets his across the crate of smuggled weapons they’re unpacking (because that, at least, is deemed work for a cripple).

“We both know I deserve many things, and a medal isn’t one of them.”

Bodhi looks down at his hands, at the crate, clearly disagreeing (but, to his credit, not stupid enough to disagree _out loud_ ), then says in a small voice: “Give it to Jyn, then. She and you got the plans, the rest of us were just… just helping along.”

Cassian knows Draven and the princess were surprised he didn’t suggest Jyn, and Bodhi seems to be confused about that as well, but –

 _No_. Jyn Erso doesn’t want medals. She doesn’t want to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of soldiers and have a heavy metal object hung around her neck. None of them did what they did for a reward, but Jyn…

There is only one person whose praise she craves, and it’s not the princess. It’s none of the rebels. Not even him. And no medal in the world will bring Galen Erso back to tell his daughter _well done,_ and if Cassian were to put her on that stage she would only be forced to stare into that abyss.

(She already has nightmares. He refuses to add to them.)

Jyn is too much like him. Jyn doesn’t want another weight to carry beside the guilt weighing on her shoulders. She doesn’t believe she deserves it - they would have never set foot on Scarif without her. Or without him.

It will not make things easier, seeing people look up to her in admiration; it will not ease her suffering to have them cheer for her and look at her and salute her – Jyn is too much like him, in that regard.

Bodhi never believed in himself, never believed he mattered. Cassian isn’t fool enough to think this will heal him, but if it _helps_ , however little, it’s worth a try.

He doesn’t say any of that. It’s not his place.

“You saved us, Bodhi,” he says instead, very softly, closing his fingers around his shoulders firm enough to bruise. “Not just Jyn and me, you saved _this,_ everyone here. Without you, the Rebellion would have been wiped out by now, instead we _blew their weapon out of the sky._ We’d have never got this far without you, bringing us your message.” He tries for a smile and adds, as firmly as he can: “You’re the only hero here, my friend.”

The pilot shakes his head and opens his mouth to answer, but Cassian cuts him off.

“Say _thank you, captain,”_ he says, only half joking, _“_ you’re not to contradict your superiors, Rook.”

Bodhi’s look slowly transitions from startled to unsure to very mildly annoyed.

“Thank you, captain,” he says in a deeply sarcastic drawl that makes Cassian’s heart sting.

(He’s almost used to it.)

~~He’ll never be used to it.~~

“Good. Let’s get presentable, then. I’ll tell the princess.”

Bodhi looks worried, and again, Cassian tries for a reassuring smile.

“We’ll be there with you,” he says softly and adds, after a little hesitation: “ _All_ of us. Alright?”

His pilot’s dark eyes pierce his, too big and too dark and too scared, and Cassian can’t remember wanting to protect someone this much since he was fourteen and his little brother died in the dust of a scorched street. He swallows the image down - this one, he is used to, almost.

“You deserve this.”

Bodhi swallows, and nods. “Alright. Alright.”

Cassian fleetingly wants to hug him, but can’t, and doesn’t; just claps him on the shoulder and walks away.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> _O captain, my captain!_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Do I have an unhealthy fixation on this rank? ~~That is an utterly irrelevant question I will not grace with an answer.~~  
>  (Seriously though, that poem by Whitman was mentioned in one of my favourite movies _and then I read the whole thing after Rogue One and IT. KILLED. ME._ You wanna get your heart broken, look it up.)


End file.
